Tuesday, March 27, 2012

A mob hit man today detailed the sickeningly intricate steps taken to rub out NYPD cop Ralph Dols, who'd innocently asked “what’s up” to his killers just seconds before they pumped him up with lead.
Mafia capo-turned-stool pigeon Dino “Big Dino” Calabro told jurors in Brooklyn federal court that Dols, who was killed because he was married to an ex-mob wife, never saw it coming on that deadly 1997 night in Brooklyn.
Calabro is testifying against his cousin Dino “Little Dino” Saracino and Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, who are being prosecuted for murder and racketeering.

Capo, Dino Calabro

NYPD Officer Ralph Dols

Big Dino said he and Little Dino followed Dols home, and the cop was killed moments after getting out of his Cutlass.
“He [Dols] pulled to the right, where he lives. I pulled off the left,” Calabro coldly recounted. “Me and [Little] Dino jumped out. “
Dols didn’t know the two approaching men were about to whack him.
“He said `What’s up?’ “ Calabro testified.
“We shot him [pause] multiple times.”
Dols staggered backward and fell on the hood of his car.
“When we shot him, he fell back,” Calabro said.
“I shot him. I shot him with my cousin Dino.”
Big Dino and Little Dino had been carefully casing Dols’ home for weeks before pulling the trigger.
A week and a half before the killing, Big Dino and Little Dino had followed Dols home and were ready to nail him then, according to Calabro.
But Dols unknowingly bought himself more time on earth by making a yellow light, while Big Dino and Little Dino were left back at the red.
Calabro explained that killers used three cars in Dols’ slaying:
• The “kill car,” a stolen Chevy Caprice carrying the gunmen;
• A “crash car,” allegedly driven by look-out man Joseph “Joey Caves” Competiello, who was ready to ram a responding police cruiser;
• And a “clean car,” that the gunmen used for their final getaway after ditching the stolen “kill car.”
“We stole a car. We waited there and we ended up shooting him,” said Calabro, adding that he used a .44-caliber Magnum revolver in the job while Little Dino packed a .45-caliber semi automatic.
“We used [police radio] scanners, we used walkie-talkies, we used gloves, we used baseball caps.”
The capo-turned-canary insisted he had no idea Dols was a cop. Calabro said he got the kill order from his mentor Gioeli, who in turn claimed the ultimate request had come from his boss, Joel “Joe Waverly” Cacace.
“Tommy told me he [Dols] was a Mexican who worked in a Queens social club,” according to the mafia snitch.
Dols’ killing was splashed on the front page of newspapers the next day. It was only then, Calabro said, that he learned Dols was an NYPD officer.
“We don’t typically kill police officers. That’s just a rule in the mafia,” he said.
“You don’t kill kids, you don’t kill cops.”
Big Dino said he was so upset about Officer Dols’ slaying, he asked Gioeli if they should take out Cacace for the cop-killing order.
“I asked Tommy we should take him cause he screwed us,” Big Dino testified. “He [Gioeli] took a step back and he listened and he said, 'Let me see.'"
Four relatives of Dols, who declined to identify themselves, sat in the courtroom during Calabro’s testimony about his murder.
“We just want this to be over with. It’s been so many years,” said a female relative of Dols, whose killing preceded Calabro’s elevation from mere Colombo associate to "made man" in the crime family.
Calabro also testified how Tommy Shots, who feared that he was going to Hell because he had inadvertently killed a former nun named Veronica Zuraw during a mob hit, had a habit of praying in the garden of a Catholic church in Massapequa, LI, not far from Gioeli’s home.
Calabro said Gioeli also conducted more secular business in that church garden, a photo of which was introduced into evidence today.
Gioeli once summoned Calabro to the garden to discuss a plan – later carried out – to killed Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo because of concerns that Cutolo would launch a power struggle for control of the crime family, Calabro testified.